


No Shame Can Walk Where Love Trod Last

by sumhowe_sailing



Series: rafflesweek2019 [3]
Category: Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 16:57:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18077372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sumhowe_sailing/pseuds/sumhowe_sailing
Summary: A poem inspired by the prompt "Aestheticism and art in Raffles".  Only vaguely applicable.





	No Shame Can Walk Where Love Trod Last

I met a gentleman on the street

who dared to say that it was right

and good for lord and judge to mete

such punishment for wild artist’s sight;

to condemn their vision as obscene,

unholy, idolatrous, a fright

no simple man should e’er have seen. 

His face was shadowed by the night,

the moon flashed from out his eyes

and wavered like some ghostly light.

Said I,  _Sir, heard you the author’s cries?_

_Or saw him there upon the stand?_

_Or heard the love he vowed and preached,_

_Or saw the trembling of gentle hand?_

_Yet stand there now, unmoved, unreached,_

_Cold in the face of courageous love._

_Beside him, soldiers are unmanned._

Why sir, he cried, you would forgive

a man for any shameful past?

_For love, for art, there is but to live;_

_no shame can walk where love trod last._

_The artist cares not for you or I or He_

_or aught in this mortal world, but holds fast_

_to the hems of the spirit of beauty,_

_takes his rest at the foot of love’s throne._

_Think you still worldly shame is right?_ _Tell me,_

_does the painter paint for bread alone?_


End file.
